Machel Montano on Road March, Longevity, and the Philosophy Behind His Greatest Songs

In this wide-ranging and deeply reflective conversation, Machel Montano joins The Corie Sheppard Podcast to break down what most people misunderstand about Road March, performance, and longevity in Caribbean music.

Machel explains why Road March is not about choosing a song, but about understanding energy, momentum, build-up, release, and timing. Drawing from decades of experience, he walks us through the science of taking people “to the ramp,” why you can’t leave them there, and how great Road March songs are engineered to keep rising.

The conversation goes far beyond competition. Machel reflects on:

The philosophy behind his creative process and live performances

Why legacy is built backstage, not just onstage

His openness, vulnerability, and spiritual journey

Lessons learned from losing, winning, and being booed

The importance of teams, collaboration, and cultural memory

Why Caribbean music must invest in education, documentation, and systems — not just hits

He also shares personal stories about burnout, reinvention, mentorship, and why he continues to show up after everything he’s achieved.

This episode is a masterclass in artistry, intention, and cultural leadership — from one of the most influential figures in Caribbean music history.

Transcript

Choosing Producers And Defining “It”

SPEAKER_00 0:04

We have a different producer doing each one? Yeah, we have about nine producers. We have Mafan just Han in. We have Marv and our whole crew just do the original who did the stage mix. We have Rhythm Master from Antigua. We have Next Stanza, who is some ghost producers, they just do a dope one. We have Silver. Is that like nine? And we only choose like about four.

Corie 0:31

And you plan and all this. So when we home saying, nah, boy, this song is not it, and that you don't know what's coming next. You don't do kind of church, and you listen to all that.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Well, if people think of asking themselves why they're saying this song is not it, what is the it? Is it just a choice? They're just trying to choose a song. We don't choose songs just because we choose songs. We choose songs for what they can do, what they're supposed to do. It's supposed to take it to the ramp, carry on the threshold, make your nerve, make your build up, take you across the threshold and make you boost with energy. When you boost the energy and you reach another stage and you realize any stage, it's supposed to go up again. I could calculate every road match wide field. Like the majority of the Bunji Garden ones didn't have the second gear. Some people leave you up there and leave you there. When you say you can't leave them there. And we fixing songs like that since Advantage, Soka Kingdom. I would take out the second voices and they had rewrite. I had to take out the second voice and party, rewrite, just to show them it didn't have to go up. You have to keep going up. And then you bring them to relax and you start them over. Remember, we're doing this for years, so we know you have to be a mask with it. Sometimes certain songs slip in his slipstream that get lucky. Yeah. When we're tired or when we have exhausted the public's support, you know, when they just say nah nah nah nah nah too much.

Corie 2:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, listen, welcome to the Cory Shepard Podcast. Welcome back to everybody who's been listening. Welcome to all the new listeners. I've never seen a studio so full. I've never seen so many people here. Usually it's just me and one person recording. Yeah, it's just how people in the dark here. I feel the darkness work. Yeah, it's true. Welcome to the show, Marshall Montano. What's happening?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Shake is a good man. Nice to be here. Good job. I've seen you all around. I've seen all my people on your show. Every episode, I see a Marshall Montana story. And I like that, you know, because that is the true essence of life, is what people experience when they met you or when they were with you. And they leave that legacy, you know. They say on your tombstone, can say, Here lies so and so. He did this, he did that, he did this, he did this. You can know about the person, but you'll never know the person.

Corie 2:48

Yeah, it's a real thing. And I was worried that at one point in time I used to put them clips and I say, Boy, this man was, you feel like just trying to get your central. You know, I say, I didn't like how this looking, but person after person, people just bring it up.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

I understand that about my life that you know I have touched the length and the breadth of society. The five-year-old to the 55-year-old to the 105-year-old. Yeah. The television presenter to the producer to the writer to the artist. So at some point, somebody must have crossed

Welcome, Legacy, And Public Perception

SPEAKER_00 3:20

my path or my path must have crossed theirs. And we have experiences because for me, once you I'm with you, I am fully engaged in you. I want to hear what you have to say. I want to give you what you want to hear from me 100%. I want to be present and I want to be in abundance, flowing in abundance. You know, that that kind of communication is necessary. You need to pay attention when you're with people, what they may be looking for, or what you are to receive from them.

Corie 3:48

Yeah. It shows with the way people talk about you because without fail, everybody who talks about you. I could go through the list, Ajibola, Junior, Lee John, Sing. Yeah, all of them just do the Marshall voice. What is this about your voice? Everybody, nobody can't just say, Well, Marshall called me and say hello. Everybody talk about Dark Fall they get from Marshall.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, yeah. Who else here you're done doing that? Everybody talk about Michael Jackson. Hi, Teddy. How are you? And they always talk about the way he speaks. Anyway, it's just a person's energy. If a person's energy is intense, it will be intense in the voice, it will be intense in the face, it will be intense in the song, it will be just be intense. Yeah. I am an intense human being. You know what I mean?

Corie 4:30

Well, before we start, as I usually give people the option, I say, but you have anything off limits. I want you all to know that he said nothing is off limits.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Life is an open book. My life has been there from seven years old for everybody to see. Um the the the few things that you might know will be coming out in my documentary that is about to drop.

Corie 4:48

I was so surprised to hear you say that too. Because you're talking about some things that if I was you, I would not talk about it at all. I saw you in an interview talking about the Zen fight openly. I don't think I ever hear you talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

For sure, for sure. Because those were serious moments that if you don't really know the truth behind it, it will just be left to public perception. And you know, public perception of you is a tough thing to deal with because you know you're you're already fighting from the back for what people think you are, and they don't really, really know you. You know what I'm saying? So they will they will, and most of the times it's projection, they're really projecting how they feel about themselves or what they feel they're going through in life onto you.

Corie 5:23

Yeah, yeah. Until you do the work on yourself, you might never know that. For sure. But for sure. But everything that you've achieved, you're comfortable, you have enough. How much roadmarks are now is 11? You have the side with Lord Kitchener. Yeah, who had 11 before you're born? Yes, is 11 come a long time. And you see him perform and you came up and uh under them and hit that. Money, I think you're good. I think you're good with all them things. Why are you still so open?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Why am I still so open?

Corie 5:49

Yeah, because if I was you, I'd take everything I had and run and hide from this public thing because it's a cruel place. How come you're still so open?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

When you have everything, or when you have done everything, or seen everything, or have everything, you reach a point where you understand what life is about. Life is about doing what is needed. When you have everything and you look around, you'll do what is needed. Does the neighbor children need feeding? Do these youths need some attention? Am I needed over there? Because you see, everybody feels that I have a life and you have a life, and there's no your life, my life. There is life. Life is existing as one thing, and we are all a tiny part of it. What is privileged is that we get to have a uh unique experience. You, I will never know how you feel. I can't be your doctor and come ahead and say, I know you're hurting, but you know, an axia on a scale of one to ten, where is your pain? Because I can't feel what you feel. That is a unique thing, nobody will feel the same. So, but we are one existing life. So, you know, it's like I will know where I'm weak, I will know what is needed, I know what the nation needs right now. I know what the young men who might be caught up in, you know, the emotions and when they how they handle in life, I know what they need because I am part of them. Anything I see happening unconsciously, if somebody doing something unconscious, I look at it and I ask myself, what part of me is that? Yeah. From the time I say what part of me is that, I remove me being above them. I rem I put me right on the level of them. And I'll most likely notice that what they're doing, I do sometimes to a certain degree. And once you bring consciousness to unconsciousness, it's like bringing light to the dark. Once that light opens up, the darkness will dissipate. So it's just about, you know, really caring. When you care, I am an empath. I am somebody who cares about I care about trying to be ghost. I

Openness, Purpose, And Service

SPEAKER_00 7:45

would not want to see the culture dying and don't do nothing. I wouldn't want to see the races fighting and don't do nothing. I wouldn't want to see the musicians going astray and don't do anything. I will be a living example, or I will go there and interact.

Corie 8:00

Yeah, so you're you're showing up for it as part of one thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it is not about me. If it was about me, I ain't to coin coconut, swimming in the sea, walking to the lighthouse every day. A nice wooden house, and you know, sweet, sweet Netflix. Yeah. I'm a little studio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not trying to get rich or anything. I'm not trying to just keep winning titles. I trying to show up for people for what they need. They need inspiration. These youths, you know what I mean? They they I was inspired by David Ruther. You you know, it's just a stand up as a child, 11 years old, on children of the frontline, and and watch David tell you this is the Holy Temple of soccer, and see Anne Marie and all these people and them in front of him, looking up at him and see him, you know, going down in the rhythm, the way they was going. Song revolution. We stand up on the stage, Chandelier watching Yanny Macintosh, I mean Kalian, I beaver. I can keep going on and on. We looking at these people and thinking they making magic because they're making us feel excited. Yeah, so it's the same thing.

Corie 9:07

Yeah, and I was saying projection, right? Me looking at your Instagram, I don't think from me projecting onto you know, I don't think it's look happier than when you're in Toku. That's a real thing, it's look real peaceful and happy.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Watch me. From the time I started drive out there, I feel like I go on an adventure. Me and my wife are alone and we in the car, we swear we go on holidays, right in Trinidad in our own house in our own yard. I spent the whole of COVID in Toku, and it was I didn't wear no mask. I was on the beach, I was in lockdown for a second.

Corie 9:34

Yeah, zero lockdown. I saw you know I interviewed voice um voice and them on this Thursday night. That's the first time we really see it during the COVID, too. At least you share a little bit with me there.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

But they beg for that, and I tell them, I tell them I was, you see, just like when you come and tell me, come and do this, and I say, you know, I'm a person who likes to talk much because if I start to talk, people will feel aware.

Corie 9:53

You did say that, isn't it? You did say that.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

And I like to talk when I have something to say, right? And most of the times I so busy building something, it's really I should talk after it happened.

Corie 10:03

Yeah, gotcha. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's what you said. You said he was an inward junior, so it was facing inward. When I ready to come back out again, yeah, it'll come back. But you know it's how people go watch this and say only come back because you're pushing a road match.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Well, that's why I'm here. That's why you're here, yeah, for sure. I don't know why people feel like I want to hide this or or why they feel me going for a road match is something so wrong. I am at 11 and I could go to 12. I don't really want to outdo Lord Kitchener, but I think the the universe is there for that to happen. You think Carl Lewis thought about Usain Bolt? He didn't think that it would happen. But here comes Usain. Do you think there will be nobody after Usain Bolt who will outdo that? There will be something. If you understand life, it is eternal, it is infinite, but most importantly, it is exponential. It is an asymptote. It means it keeps going, going, going, going, going, going. This is the the the the uh axes, it will never touch. Yeah, it will never reach the end. There is no conclusion, it's life everlasting. All they want to hear from the Bible, or they want to hear it from just observation. There is no death. When the plants die, they make life in the ground and more life comes up. It's just on and on and again and again and again and again and again. Like I encore. Come on, I am here to talk the things. I have no shyness. I accustomed getting beat, people beat me already, it feels bad. Yeah. When I was just driving up here and listening to the radio and they playing all the road matches. When you see I win 2011, 2012, here comes Super Blue, who comes out of nowhere with one of the craziest songs and I play shake it like this. And we have a good song, but we can't beat him. But we fight. I risk my life. I put on a ring around my waist and fly over the national stadium with the 30 second real sort before the show. I'm glad you know you risk your life. Of course. I was ready to die. And why was I ready to die? To try to beat super. We tie. Right? Okay, I didn't get our road marshal here. Then I went back 2014, 15, 16. By the time we reached 16, we born. We did have a good song. So full extreme. Run through 17. Went to India, sitting in front of the beach. She hooked me up with his arm. Where I call this woman his mentor. She's a spiritual Baptist, but yet she's a new new wave meditation. She put me through a program, I in her house on the beach. If I walk out on her beach, I could walk two hours this way or two hours. That way, and nobody out here in India. A dolphin swimming in front of me. I in a house by myself every night with the windows and doors. Day in the back coming to check on me. Like if I on the morning ground. And she asked me some questions. What is sacred to you? It takes me three days to find the answer before she could come back and I can tell her. And I was a little bit ashamed because I thought I started search. What is really sacred to me? She showed me my sacrum. And the only answer I could cover with after three days is my work. And I was like ashamed because it wasn't my mother, it wasn't my children, it wasn't my family. And I asked myself, why? And when we go through why, and I said, why? Because that is how I take care of them. That is how I am able to take care of more than my family. My family, everybody on the outside. That's why I'm able to keep this whole

Competition, Exponential Life, And Risk

SPEAKER_00 13:30

room of people bubbling. And I didn't feel shame about it. I know my work was my first thing. I might be the best father. And not always there. But when my children come around me, we like brother and sister, they could feel that the work matters. They could feel that they are brothers and sisters to everybody else who I have to deal with. You understand what I'm saying?

Corie 13:50

Yeah, which you always see. So it's something I see when it's bringing up Carl Lewis, right? I always look at it like this. And I my thought when I hear people say that is if I make a product, how you go vex with me if I push my product? It's a very weird concept. And I know how you deal with it. But I see, I remember where I was when Lara made 375. Yeah, me too. Because I was playing cricket. And I used to hear this 365 thing, and I hear sobers that man make a run for every day in a year. Yeah. And when Lara passed it, I love Lara more, but it didn't make my love sobers less. Exactly. In the sense of a strange thing.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

But look at it this way. Do you remember sitting there and watching Usain Wolf about to do it? Yeah. Do you remember sitting there and watching Lara about to do it? Were you not rooting for it to be done?

Corie 14:32

100%. I was in Jamaica on Bolt Breaker Records. So I I feel the energy.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

So how come I, at this level, somebody who has given people 11 moments like this, ready to do this, and nobody, everybody thinks I should stop. The majority of people think I should stop. But why do you feel that is it had to be something unique? I think I think it had to be something unique that you know they make it work hard for you. So every force, there's an equal and opposite force. If you're jumping real high, they will try to pull that door. And and then again, I think it's just something with me. You know, I win in too much. Yeah, things going too good, things too nice, but it's not this have nothing to do about me. Let's remove me and let's look at his song. And what his song is saying, you're only as good as his last performance. You know? Backstage is where legends are born. So we're not talking about the stars, we don't talk about the top people, we're talking about everybody who is asked to perform their best, especially those who we don't see. What they're doing behind the scenes. You're giving them a chance to understand, man. Give them that performance. Go till they fall on the tape. You're falling on the tape on your face, white man. Yeah. You're skin great up. Just go. And then when you think that, if you think this was life before, dress for yourself done. Everything I always tell my team, right? I about to go to the next Marsh Montana, the next 20 years version. And I told them that I am going to, you know, I am going to create the Marsha that I was always dreaming of, never had a chance to. The things that I hear in my head. So I say everything before was address yourself. Or they could take all the roadmashs, crump it up and throw it away. All the songs and albums, crumple it up and throw it away. All them trophies in the room, melt that and give it away. It does not matter.

Corie 16:36

But that's something I always wonder about our industry. I find it's a brutal thing for artists where that does not matter because it matters. You look at the catalogue you have and what you've done for all of us. How come you and all as the person who are the helm of this thing had to reset every year and come again? Which on core kind of encapsulates perfectly.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

If I wasn't winning, they wouldn't care. If I wasn't going hard, they wouldn't care. And sometimes when you're winning, they care about that too because that's a problem. Yeah. You know? So at least there is care.

Corie 17:12

Well, that's one thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Because if they didn't care, then it's a bigger problem. So just really, this is not about what people think at all. Yeah. This is about your potential, what you could do. And even when they think I down and out, I only wake in hours in the night figuring out how to do it. Yeah. How to do it better.

Corie 17:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

You know, and I'm very happy in that space.

Corie 17:34

Well, I'm glad to hear that you're happy in this space because sometimes the comments get brutal. The comments and the memes and all them kind of

Perfection, “Encore,” And Craft

Corie 17:40

things.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Oh, for sure. But you see, you have to laugh about it because I went through, and that will be in the documentary. I wouldn't talk about that here, but I went through the worst experience when it comes to that. I had people in my car calling me certain words and certain things that they believe strongly that I am, and I am not. And it's only me and God can know that. And yet it gets them so mad. Like watch them, they they're so mad they like almost want to rip my head off for being something that I am not. So I ask myself, well, what is that? Where does that come from? And I just understand that it happens in life. That is how we are sometimes.

Corie 18:16

Yeah. Now, as somebody with your ears, you know, you know what you're looking for. You said before we start that everything is very deliberate, very focused. Yeah, man. I saw Mevon and Jeffers say, This is the first time they send you a song on Kyle. And you say, fellas, I see it on Instagram so they all do all itself. They say, first time you really change nothing, you accept this song the way it is. What makes Uncle so special when you hear the first time?

SPEAKER_00 18:36

The perfection. It is perfection. Two people tell me, Hoppy tell me, Cunell come and say, Boy, I think this song just too perfect for people. It's just too perfect. And I mean, I don't feel as perfect. There are some things that I feel could have been done better. The song Hi. You know what I'm saying? Everybody can sing that high. Jefferson be writing up in a falsetto. I just listening to stage going by with Iwa.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

Oh, that's easy. Oh, that's image.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

It's so high. But yet it works because sometimes you know it's about energy. So when they sent it and I listened to it, by the time I hear you're only as good as your last performance, I went to cry. Because it resonated with my life. That people would not like you if you're not winning. No matter what I did last year, you know, I had one of, I was telling that story about one of the most embarrassing moments or lowest moments in my life was in 2020 when I had Cong Shell. And I was the backup song. The year before I had Bungie and I had Skinny with Man, they was riding everywhere. We go in everywhere, because we go in out in the tape, we want to win. I come and apple skinny and Iwa. Iwa even tell us he had a next song with Guess. He makes if he hear nothing. But he came to do that to cover the bases. Go in. To then never show up. Sabo. He never showed up, but he was there with stage with Kess every night. And it was me and Skinny was trying, and then Skinny lights started dim when he realized it looking dim, boy. And I don't I don't ever stop him. I just feel like it could turn around today. CC Wine and say that, you know. It could happen today. Believe in, you know. Um, yeah, um, she say, boy, all right, all right, all right. Believing a change could come today, even tonight. He's gonna answer every little prayer. Just hold on, wait and see. You know, it's gonna be alright. You know, I just hear that. That was one of these songs, one of the albums when I was in my greatest depression in my apartment, crying during carnival seasons, darkness, nobody around me. I alone in my jockey shorts. I had to cry, I had to cry with snat in my hand, listen, CC Winance, just to get that strength to come back to go out and face the next day. So I was saying when I lights at the dip, skinny starts to disappear. It's me alone, and I just decided one more push, but I don't know why I feel I still have a touch. And I tried to go and stage tribe going through the savannah any night. And I went up on that stage to sing that song, boy. Boy, and then people boo me off that truck, boy. 2020 I just went in 2018 and 2019. I was just the king. They boom off the truck, they say, Come, don't, come off. And the DJ

Lows, Booing, And Resilience

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Kevin Kron is the only man come and stand up next to me and start to sing the song like he's skinny or like he's Iwa. And it's the only thing make me and jump off that truck and break my head. It was such a low, low, low, low feeling.

Corie 21:43

I remember seeing you make it a point to tell Kevin Kron that when you're in New York back to you.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

And and and the most important thing is at that moment, I shouldn't be getting on so I should just know sometimes other people have to win too. Sometimes you have to get licks. Not you all the time, and I know. That's why I could lose real comfortable.

Corie 22:02

Also, you're cool at it now.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Yeah, of course. But you're good. But I have to go, especially if I know this song is the song that people want to cross your road and jump to. Yes, I don't measure the mood of the people. When they wanted a bimble-bam bam. Then they wanted a bah here girl. We didn't expect that. But it was so sweet to chip. You know, I see them saying, yeah, Groovers could win, groovers could win. But if you look at the Groovy songs that won, Shadow. Yeah, it was like a boss. Those songs turned into power groovies.

Corie 22:33

Yeah, you turned, you turned like a boss into a power. I never really power. Until um Full Blown was here. I never really pay attention to the fact that they recorded more on the Groovy size.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

It's 125 BPM.

Corie 22:44

Yeah, I remember the first time I see you going on stage to perform that series.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Today we're doing like I was at 166 BPM. It's just ridiculous. But I see Beanie Man do that live. As of Beanie Man, I saw when you saw the comedy Roughcut Band is doing all his songs sped up. That is not even that style where people speed up songs on the internet, sped up fusion.

Corie 23:04

Yeah. No, you bring up you talk about Bahia Girl, right? You were in one of the most iconic calypso monas. I feel like if I don't know if people remember. 1986 when you were in Bahia Girl and Hammer, you you there. I was right there. 11 common entrance. Clear as daylight. Yeah. I remember it clear as daylight. What's your feeling going into that year and all that competition? You comfortable? Excited, cool.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

You know, you see, I am not really one who wanted to ever be a superstar. I was pushed, you know what I mean? And if you watch the documentary, this is a funny part of the documentary. Yeah, and all that needs to know. I just keep saying okay, and they just push him in eyeballing, okay. I just want to be a good child.

Corie 23:41

I know I hear your mother saying, you know, when I hear I hear your mother say the first time she frightened when Marshall goes and do an interview. I surprised she didn't come today. They say frightened. And Marshall said, Don't worry. I go, I good. I'm comfortable, I go talk. That sounds like somebody who was wanting to be a son, no?

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Not necessarily. I just was very much into what I have to say. I want to be a lawyer. That's a lawyer in me. I can't lose arguments because I come in truthful and factual, and I carry it down to the end. And I will be responsible. So I know what I had to say. Sometimes I listen to interviews of myself. WBLS talking about bringing countries together, bringing people together in unity with true music. And I am doing that right now, and I don't know who is that kid saying that or why is that in his head. It had to mean it come there from some other time or from somewhere before. That was the purpose of that. Yeah. You know, me in. So I don't know who it is. I don't know what happens in my mother and didn't teach me to say it. Yeah. It was just what I thought I I wanted to do. And here I am doing it still to this day. I singing in the Chutney Soka Mona. My song is called Dancing in the Streets. I have an Indian guy playing Pan-African guy playing Tassa. I have the dancers coming together and we mixing it together like Lava.

Corie 24:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Mix it up.

Corie 24:53

As a Miller Private Ryan?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah. Yeah, I go in with that song too.

Corie 24:57

So last year you were paying attention to the memes. I said the man, the only thing the man who went into the Chutney Soka and he went in because of it.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

You said the only thing was. Well, I you see, expect that if that is needed. If it is necessary for me to inn have a universe to save the world, I will do what it takes. Save this for one when you reach it. But I just being extreme because I just trying to say, you know, life is like a box of chocolates. Right? Here first, go say that. Understand something. If you could keep choosing what you want in life, it has to be related to the past. It is a derivative of the past. It could only be a choice of something that you already know. But life is so great. It might give you something you never thought of or dream of. And that will be a surprise. That happened to me in 2024 within the Calypso Mona. I had no clue that that would happen in my life. I wanted it to happen. I wish about it as I did. If you go back to that to Young Tosoka, that moment. I thought I was good and win. I didn't as well see in the game.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

It seems so. And I seems so.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

And I hear I had come to it. But I hear by the tiny judges form reach. Two other men fly in front of me and Chop. That's a Duke.

Corie 26:13

Yeah, people might remember it was Duke, Scrunter, Chop. That's David Roder Stalin as he is the heavyweight in that competition. He beat a few people too. I think it was David first. David first, Stalin. I can't remember who comes to it. But no, he beat Scrunto, he beat Duke. I came fifth. Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

I came fifth. Yeah, so there's a bit 20 men coming now. Yeah. Till I was two. I hear so. I hear the formless change when it reached, you know. But at the end of the day, my

Groovy vs Power And BPM Strategy

SPEAKER_00 26:40

thing had a mishap. I I I was had am I putting on these um shiny tights to protect in case you die before long? Yeah. And boom, boom. Or or we go in no tights. You know, then give us play my summer and no tights, some of our tights. Well, boy, them pulling one of them bronze tights on me to protect and and pin the pants. But that bronze tights make the pants slip down. Everybody say, Boy, ma should shake somebody's hand in the back. All kinds of things. But we calculate it was a mistake by putting on our tights because the pumper keep falling. Yeah, yeah. I couldn't concentrate. But if you see, man, if you watch it, I pulling it up and trying to go now. But it looked like it's part of the act. It looked like part of the act, and at the end of the day, it is what it is, you know.

Corie 27:23

But people might remember like people talk about Friday on today, but I saw articles from back then where Kitchener was saying they shouldn't let this little boy enter the competition because any little boy now, any parent go find the child, they go buy a song and then they will mash up Calypso.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Well, I had that article on feature on the big screen in my performance for Soul of Calypso. That was the point. The Too Young to Sooker was written because I was in the tent from 1984. From anytime I sing the letter in the savannahs during Calypso Mona, people didn't like me because here's this little boy singing about school teachers reaching to school late and disrespecting each other and only blaming each other, and we just fall in all here. They did not like that at all. The um Mr. Garcia, the the header tutor that time. Yeah, yeah. He was like, I am not supporting this guy. Support Penguin, who was singing a deputy essential. But he didn't support this little boy talking about the example that teachers setting. Yeah, where's the whole tool?

Corie 28:20

Because even where you bring that song.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

So I brought the article, Kitchener was saying, do not let little children get songs written. My song was written by Winsford DeVines. My parents went in, but we went with the idea because everybody was saying he's too young to be out here, he should be in school. And they were like, why if he's doing his homework and he has the talent, why should we clamp down the children? And they were saying, do not bring children in the competition. Because everybody will send the child by Winsford or by um Was he Manny Merchant or by this one and come a GB and come up with that big song, and we only have children and the thing. Which I thought, well, if that does happen, then that's a good thing. That would make the thing youthful and younger and make it more vibrant. You're thinking like that as well, as then for sure. But I mean, at the end of the day, we were seeing our life as a prosperous thing and going forward. So why would we stop? Every time you're seeing something to happen great, somebody wanted to stop. You said that they don't want greatness. You know what I'm saying? So um Kitchener and all them was again said there were many articles. Angela Peddock, this one now. I have all the articles, I have them still to this day. And I read them from time to time. I had to read, read all of them in the year 2000. I read over everything to understand who I was and what I went through. So at this point now, Kitchener don't talk to me. But I live to see Kitchener come back to approve and to ask me to come and sing in his tent and to lead his tent. And I used to stand up every night right next to him. Him and Pink Panther, they stand up there and they talk, yeah. I want to talk to him, and he never says a word to me. Not how words. He just always smiles and watch me, and I already know he's sorry, he didn't see it, he understands it, and here I am today. Yeah, closing his tent every night, giving him reaction, and he just nod and look at me

Too Young To Soca And Kitchener’s Pushback

SPEAKER_00 30:10

in a way that I don't need words. I feel in the love, I feel in the acceptance.

Corie 30:15

Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Maybe talking to you through Colonel. No, no, I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Our relationship is deep. Me and Colonel have a relationship. What he did for my life is what Kitchener made him for. To give me life, to give me that support, to give me fellas my age who could write, who could understand the magic of what we want to do to people, to art.

Corie 30:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? So at that point in time, and we're talking about albums today, you talking about a time where you're you're fully committed to music by 11. At that point in time, you know that's when you want to do free or say life. No. Or the loyalty's still on the table.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Loyalty was still on the table.

Corie 30:52

Yeah, because Alvin Daniels told me about 19 different passes and one sort of subject, all the hard subjects.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Nine, nine, nine. All right, look close. And and trust me, I am not that studious. I cramped very hard in form four. I realized I didn't know any of the work. Time what I had a mother who is a teacher, and a father's a teacher, and she and she just said, All right, let me get the syllabus, let me get the past papers, and let you start and make um posters and things on the um is me, is me, is me. I I don't know whether I don't know. I don't know. I could have swear I could cuss me. Anyway, um there's one ping is one thing, Love with it. It's sleepy. But but um, but seriously, you know, I just had my mother just she went all in and she was like, let's do it. And we was just like very clinical about it. This is 1.1, 1.2, this is the textbooks that had the 1.1, 1.2, and we just cram, cramp, cram, cram, cram, cram, cram. And I get the passes that I always tell people going to school is to learn how to learn. You're not really going to school to get passes to be at this or to be learn anything. So that learning process helped me to understand music. But when I was in A levels, when I was in A levels, I was in A levels in the class with Brian Manning, um, you know, and all these guys, and we couldn't take physics away. And we had a physics teacher who was so nice, he came in and he said, Gentlemen, if only don't want to be here, they could leave. He just had the grand, grand cheers, just on the push out. We walk on the class, we never went back. And that was till one September. By the time Brian Manning, too, we leave too. Yeah, all of we went to the time of them. Because we couldn't take the physics boy. We wanted to do other things. But by the time I reached that, and the time I realized I didn't know anything on the test, I was shocked. I tell my parents immediately I started look for a music school to go to. I wanted to drop out. My mother cried. When I say cry, drop out of school is not something in her understanding. My father gave me the best advice. He said, Listen, if you come out of school and you don't get a job in that system, understand this. You're not clocking your car at nine and clocking out at five or eight and four. You will determine your own hours, you will determine how you get paid, you will determine what is the depth and the breadth and the length of your career. And I thought, yeah, man, I ready. And little, a little little did I know I had to have a nervous breakdown in when I was about 17. Yeah. You know, uh to understand I working hard, too hard is not going to bring the results. You have to work smart, you have to know when to rest, you have to know when to be with family, you have to also know when to apply your hours. So I thought I went hard and burned out. Yeah. You know?

Corie 33:36

Yeah, as a young age show that was 17.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

That was the year 1996, take a borough. I burned out, I was in the house almost near to death. People come, they start spreading rumors about me being sick that went all around the world. And and I used to be getting up in night and walking into the jungle by myself in my jockey shirts again.

Corie 33:56

Yeah, jockey shorts for my thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

And my friend had to come for me and what's going on with you? I was hearing voices here and people hated my calling, all kinds of things. And as a young man, you know, I was interfering with a little weed to every now and then because I see my friends, and yeah, and I started opening Bible and started, it just wasn't adding up. I wasn't understanding why I am not liked. Yeah, what am I doing to be not liked? And I thought I was doing the best, and I just realized people were really out here to not like you.

Corie 34:24

Yeah, I guess you can't control that.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

It can't control it, it's just normal. Yeah, so I I was a little weird. And and and through that path, I found the answer.

Corie 34:34

Just and healing from that, you mean?

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Well, it was a few magical moments. You know, I was grave, my mother came over me and she said, Marshall, she couldn't take it. My father would get so mad, he was like, Well, the way you gain one, like it's true. Like, it's true. And he just woke off, he vexed. But my mother came in and she said, Marshall, you know what, boy, I want to tell you, he was born dead. He was born still born. God have to have a purpose for your son. And that is the first time I ever really heard talk about that. I knew about it, but I didn't even hear talk about it. And it directly connect, and it's like if great clouds just open and I see sunlight. And then I used to go down on the beach and forgive me, but curse God at the highest level. Why, why, why, why, why? Why are you doing this to me? What I do? And

Burnout, Stillness, And The Big Truck Pivot

SPEAKER_00 35:20

he comes and he says, if you and I alone know the answer, and people talking about things they don't know, I trying to push you up above the mist. I trying to rise here above the fog, above what people might say. That's not important. What you know and I know. Let's function with that. And with that, I there was nothing could be said about me ever since 1996. Nothing anybody could say about me will ever touch me. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Because I understood what the purpose of that was, it was for you to rise. And I went in, I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't have sex, I didn't have girlfriends, I didn't go out for nine months straight. And what was born out of that nine months was Big Truck, Pretty Girl, Music Farm, crowded. We in Roger Gez, Caleb's So Nice. I produced all those songs, wrote all those songs, played instruments on all those songs, and made the Big Truck Heavy Duty album, which was the turning point for our life.

Corie 36:17

Yeah. My wife said to me, she wasn't telling her Big Truck is our favorite song, right? So Zachary recovered that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's covered. But there was a video that I saw with you and several soulcasts and calpsous. It looked like Oliver's registering for a competition. And he was talking about that period in your life because I think it the rhetoric, as always, is uh there's a there's a boogeyman in our culture. They have a sound.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

It's always coming in soakamana.

Corie 36:42

And he was making us so come on a registration. Yes. And you're making us a point to tell them like you you invest everything in it. You see records pile up home by you. For sure. Yeah, so so so 96 is when you're you're you're starting to just relieve yourself of that personally in terms of that.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

And there's a lot of other things was happening too. In in in in remember, I start off with the big guns. I had less than Paul in 1984, 86 was less than Paul. 87 I worked with Pelham Goddard, and 88 David Ruther was writing for me. 89 I was with Frankie McIntosh and Strake, and then I was with the top producers in the music game, and it wasn't working. In 91, while I was doing um, I was doing um uh CXC and me and Manny, Manny used to come home and study by me. And mother used to tutor them. And and and I had friends, I decided, man, let me try to program my own song. And I I produced and program Take Back Africa. Using uh a log drum. No, everybody using log drum. I programmed that log drum, I put monkeys in there, ooh, ooh, uh, uh, the horns with exact. And I won my young kings, and I thought that the music was changing, but then I went back in '91, '92, '93, working with Kenny Phillips, who's Kissy and Kyle's father. And Kenny had a little steam, but it was he was still one of the old boys in my eyes. Because different things were starting to happen. We start to hear um Kiskity Caravan. It was on the bridge. There's some things was happening. I thought our song was sounding old. Right. And I tell Kenny I was gonna give up in '93, and he said, Oh God, give me one chance. And I came out with go down low, mama ding ding, that saved my life. By the time '94 was in left, right, back, push, the light was dimming again. Sung in old. By the time '96 would take a borrow, it was sung in old, but I was heading for a crash, anyways. And and I just decided when I pull out, withdraw, and was home going through depression, and the doctor call it chronic asthemia, where I have no more energy in here, all the juices suck out. He said, I had to just sleep and rest. And when that happened, I had enough clarity to know that I couldn't do my own thing. Because we sung in old, and Shell Shock was there working with Kiskid D Caravan in 96, and Alice Nines was banging with Faluma, not Faluma, um Ragamuffin and Crossfire had pumped me up. And it was it was this man named Nicholas Branca who I saw in '95 and '96, '96, and thing, working with Kenny Phillips, learning how to make soccer. And yet now here he was ruling his soccer game with this fresh sound. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I find we song like old people. I get mad. I was pissed.

Corie 39:28

Even that period, we felt singing. We calling some song there that we haven't had time.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

I was pissed, and I just went in '97. I said, fellas, I'm not taking this. If they that good, we could be that good too. And I called Vincent Rivers, Joey Rivers, um, all the members of my band. And I said to them, remember, I also got signed to Atlantic Records, not Atlantic, to Delicious Vinyl in um 95 with Come Diggit. And I got some money, I bought a studio, it didn't work out. I came back, but I kept the studio in New York. I said, let us go in New York in the studio and make the greatest music we ever make. And they said, Boy, we Vincent, I have to rent a mind. I can't go through that kick drum, dup, dup, dup, sneak, cut, cut. Nah, yeah, I told you, check it. I said, Well, just give me six months. And they came, we moved into two apartments in New York on Arm Flat, Utica. My mother and them upstairs, the studio downstairs, and we just worked. Samuel Jack, farmer Napy Road, came with the ideal music farm. I had Winer Boy with Kitchener, Tung Tung, Tung, dunga, no, no, no. Give me eating with the doctor. I started sampling songs. Pretty Gil was for my papa san, girls, girls, everywhere I go. Dung dung ding dung dung ding. I play all them instruments. Big truck. I wanted to win a road match. I was like, I have to win a road match, I have to be the biggest thing. This you only we I could what is the biggest thing I can write about? Ping the truck. And I started programming the beat with horn going and shh, air brakes, and then Shell Shock was

Reinventing The Sound And Team-Built Hits

SPEAKER_00 41:00

there. Freshly left Amara, had nowhere to go. I said, Come and live by me and come and give me what you give them. And he did the drums for big truck. Yeah. And then we just started work, and it came out to be that we didn't have to go back. It was the biggest thing. And we had next year was 98 when I did produce and write footsteps with Farmer, give it to Win Roger Guess. In 1999, we were almost there, the Beanie Man and VP, and we crash again.

Corie 41:26

But going back to that 96, because I uh it's interesting to hear so you all were deliberately working on changing his own. Because when that big truck and all the songs that come out around it, everything changed at all. Keep in mind, as a teenager, then we're sneaking out, we also go and see other fellas. And it was it was the point at which we realized the jump and wave, you know, they had a jump and wave zero and the beijon invasion thing with that smooth kind of what we call them groovy now. But that music on that that initially is just so fresh to youths. So you're deliberately looking at the young audience and trying to create something that's different from the area you come from.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Well, yes, that too, but you're looking at people like Danet up, dan dana, dan dana, and it's so swanky. And Sheshop mixing the soaker with hip-hop beats, you're looking like um um jump started, kickstart it, start back, rolling everything they touch, um, kindred, it was so youthful and stylish, and you're asking yourself, why am I not there? But they were listening to hip-hop and dance hall and trying to make so interpretations of it, and they had Shell Shock Benjamin, one of the greatest to ever live. He should be given an award, his family should be taken care of. He shifted something for us. If he could have only last longer, and I was present to see his last breath in life, he was with me. Shells shock is the one who brought Ableton to me when I told him I needed something to perform live on stage that could put the background focus on your samples and change. And I sent him out into well, and he finds it. Today that is our statement everybody system. So he's such a great person. But then again, you know, um, it wasn't the fact that just that we want to change the music, we wanted to change our experience. I wasn't feeling comfortable songing like an old man. And I tell Kenny that. And I he said so when he was here, though. Yes, I had to tell them that. I mean, Kenny's my best friend, one of my best friends. Imagine I have road matches with his sons. I had to switch away from him because he was really, he don't care. He just wanted to be the basement with his wife and the children and make music. Kenny is one of the weirdest aliens he'll find. But I'm a friend because I am one of those two, and his sons are like that also. And daughter. They all singing Caracas Evocals on party that make party the hits. We work so hard. You understand? She's the one doing some work behind there, real quiet. Kyle is the man who who never Kyle Kyle waiting on the stage, which we needed that break. I had to get Casey. I beg Kissy to help him for two years by a year. You want to mark that song. And when Kissy really decided to. Find the bram pra is what makes the song. That bram bram bram is what you're hearing in so kingdom. Bram bram bram bram is what you're hearing in price coutin. Bram bram is what you're hearing in most of those songs. Because come home, all the songs that you hear with so called build up, hard fed, everything is patterned after waiting on the stage. And even they say you can hear waiting on the stage in a certain song. All right, stay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They patterning after those changes that we made. But I'm saying the point I was making is that when you want to change yourself, when you're so desperate enough, when you get really fed up of feeling, you're going to either sink or switch or float. Swim or sink. And that was it for me. I couldn't take everybody's sounding youthful, all the kiss skitty caravan, everything going on, Alice Nines, Vision and Vision. It was too much for me. So I went in to my deepest core and relied on me and my boys around me. And everybody showed up. Farmer showed up, Samuel Jack showed up, Vincent, who put the bass in for um for um big truck to I didn't make up that. He made up that. Then I Michelle Shuck showed up with Shadow, the mighty Shadow, show up and write what they say, they say. I was also writing a very big song with David Rudder that year, but it didn't come out. And if I only talk about that one, boy, that one is a big one. I ain't ready to talk about that one yet.

Corie 45:32

But something you might still do? Well, it's something that's living. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Without me. Okay. All right. But really with me. All right. You know, and I'll talk about that when that's cool. Me and David and the cinema.

Corie 45:45

Yeah, that's why I was gonna record it. Interestingly, bring up party, right? Let's let me go back to last year. Initially, I remember when I hear party the first time. I find you know, these some of these things people say in with Angkor now, they're saying it is nothing. When you hear that, you hear it with party initially.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

It was the same thing as everybody. Right, good. Well, there is a meme. There is a meme going on every boy, Marshall singing shit. Boy, good on my boy. Oh good. Why it is every time Marshall brings out that song, the first thing is it must be shit. I don't know why you do it.

Corie 46:19

I fall for that too.

Shaping Live Shows And Band Evolution

Corie 46:20

Let me tell you, I was in Yui, and that was the first year. I can't remember where it was in the Snow Lipporm. And you had Jumbi. And I was in the audience, and you say, well, let's try and I think you know you have not that something I know a little plan for your audience. But I remember you're going to the jumbi and singing something, and then all listening in the middle of it, you see, we have a dance. Outer body back to yourself. As in our marshal. Let me go again. Let me hear I will have. Let me hear somebody else. I was in that audience. And you say, Well, you cool it, relax, thing, and you stay with it, you perform it, perform it, perform it. And I leave the thinking, I can't be it, you come to the side.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

But you thought about the outer body back to yourself. That wasn't good. I just find it was weird. The gimmick. The dance. But okay then, but this is not about a dance. Right. This is about actually the absolute truth of life. Do you know that playing masks is based on the premise of coming out of your body and going back to yourself? When you put on that mask, you no longer become this human. You become a part of a multiverse of humans. A mention. When you put on a head, a rat head in rat race, you are no longer Cory Shepherd. You are one of the rats coming down the road in a unity that if you go up in the sky or you go up in the savannah and watch down, you will believe this is such a beautiful thing. Not knowing there's a hundred thousand players. Yeah, yeah. It is one moving thing. So when we put on a mask, which is what was the philosophy behind masks in ancient Kemet in Egypt, they wanted to thank the gods for making the Nile overflow and giving them food and you know, making the land fertile. So they will come out in the streets, put on his mask, and come you know with the gods and clap and bang symbols and hit iron and dance and thing to be with the gods. That is what we're doing. When you put on your costume, you want to be part of the band. The only problem we have today is that when people put on their costume, it's really about how they look it on Instagram. There is no more menschale. Or tic-tac toe down the river. It is no more sanny manite, no more concepts. Everybody just have these fake concepts of goddess of denial and there is no meaning. The meaning is what looking sexy, what have the nice backpack, yeah, what could go good on pictures, and we're losing that. Yeah. Once we start to lose that, we're going on a slippery slope because the depth of the side of the side.

Corie 49:05

Yeah, that is the carnival, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Individualism. Carnival is not individualism, it's the actual opposite.

Corie 49:11

Yeah, with you. So well, I I again I on that meme too, because I see that in St. Augustine and then Carnival Week. I was in the oval where he was performing all a rest of the song, and nobody in moving, and you say, Oh, you always sing Jumbi whole night or the old crowd say, Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Yeah. So this is a jumbi. Yeah. So you have to give these songs time. But you know, people send me a lot of songs, and I just want me to answer them within the next five minutes. You like it though? You're anxious. And I have to wait with that song and drive around in my car and walk around in Savannah for three, four days before I answer them. And they know that about me now. You know, and and and it's like when Jefferson sent Ancore and I listened, and my pause started raised the last performance, um, front pages where legends belong, backstages where legends are born. I was like, whoa. And it started well up inside of me. When I reached the chorus, I didn't find the chorus was big enough. It's just saying, get them, get them, get them, get them performance. I hear that already, you know. But then I then I started really taking it in, boy. And then I said to them, I said, fellas, address for yourself done, the real thing start, and you say it over and over that had a change. And I tell them all kinds of things had to change because I had answered them maybe three days after. But then when six days it soaked into me. And I realized what happened in here. The music, the intelligence of the beat. I realized, no, this could definitely take flight. And I call them back and say, fellas, I ain't changing nothing. Keep it up. Let's go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were shocked because they know over the years of us trying, I keep changing things. Come home. Come home was mine.

Corie 50:48

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

I had come home first. I still have it in my phone. I could play for you right now. And it wasn't me and Destro. And it's this Yankee singing, a Yankee boy singing. I say, Oh, yeah, we're not singing no Yankee. We not singing no Yankee. You know, we had changed that and but yet I was in school in UTT. So I really wouldn't, I would have never done what Skinny and Nyla did with that song. It had to be that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? I could con the ones that was mine, you know.

SPEAKER_03 51:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

If I tell you which one was mine this year, you cry, you know. No, the two that was mine. Roadman's beat was mine. I work on that beat. There is footage. In Anguilla, if you go back on Instagram,

Education, UTT, And A National Music School

SPEAKER_00 51:30

you'll see me and Nephon working in Anguilla. That was one of the beats that I work on with him. And you didn't want it? No, I didn't want it. I told him it was the weakest one out of the batch. You still believe this? Well, out of the batch that we had said. Right, yeah. I didn't even know what the other two was, right? Until we packed them up and we hold them. But um he gave it away. And he gave it to Garland. I would have never been able to do what Garland does with that song. Never. And why is everything must be mine? No, every bit have to share wrong. Well, we don't have a race.

Corie 52:00

Yeah, we like the race. You understand?

SPEAKER_00 52:02

And people like the race, they like the cop fight.

Corie 52:04

Yeah, as a fan, I like it because going back to so called last year with Party. Because when I hear Party the first time, the code structure was familiar. You know, it's a pop, pop code structure. And I say, all right. I hear people saying this, there's not the thing, there's no Marshall, there's no whatever it might be. And I think I'm not sure if this goes loss because it's already so familiar to you and the message that deserves it. And I didn't understand it deserve it until so could I hear. Because me and really know why I was working on it, but I feel like I deserve it when you hit that stage. That's that's so good. And from that moment, I knew something it's special.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

Andrew Jeffers is a genius, he's a strategist, he has a job, he doesn't need to write soccer music since 2012. After he saw me winning road match 2006, 6, 2007, whatever, he sees that. He's like, nah, so Marshall Alonga win, and he decided to choose Sasata, try to beat me. He reached close with Savannah with Iwa.

SPEAKER_03 53:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

I told him, You in the Savannah, we in the kingdom.

SPEAKER_03 53:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Two different things, right? Um, and and uh is the same thing I said when Kes comes at Savannah Grass and I just dies us in grass in Savannah. We did it with the family and the whole world. All the reaching, all the short, yeah, step it, we win all out. So so then eventually in 2020, he beat me with Stage Gone Bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and and and he always wanted to work with me because he wanted to work on his craft. So those things when he heard those songs, it was that. And um, and with party, when I first heard party, I hate the word party. I didn't like it. Uh party, party, and then um Caleb students saying party. I used to cringe, and I actually used to do interviews with I in America and I want to say party, but I say party because I'm American, and I used to get vexed with myself, right? So when his song came, I was like, man. But immediately upon hearing it, I know Roadmarks so well. I became a masquerader, I know what is needed, I knew that was it. I know what a feeling is to be on a truck. I performed on Tubby Truck with Roy Cape for many years. I have I came down from the truck to be a masquerader. I love crossing a stage, I know what is needed. Yeah, so when I heard party, I know it had it, and it did not matter the word party anymore.

Corie 54:23

So, with that rejection and so called party, I was watching on Instagram this time or this year with Uncle, I was watching um Experience. Right. And I see you run out with it. Yeah, I know you, I know you. I fed under you. So I see youths now who talk about Marshall and say, I don't know if they know Marshall now, but any heyday, because PSA and customs and them things used to shake. It was a different world for sure. So I was wondering how it's like for you as a performer when most of the reaction has come from the phones rather than what you're accustomed to seeing when you started.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

It is very saddening, it is very disappointing, it's confusing that again, but I know what the experience is. If I in a group of you, everybody the marshal, I want a picture, I want a picture, they want something for themselves, for their content, for their page, to make them feel good, to make other people, you know, react it, it makes them feel good. Is indoor fins. People feeding themselves by how much love they get from other people, how much attention they get from other people. You know, in my meditation, I learned that you must be pushed start. You don't need to crank start, you don't need somebody to crank you up. You push your press button, you alone must make you feel good. But not everybody understands that. So they need something. And and they're up there with the phones when I mean we could have had one person take this, give it a baby can share and say I was there, but it's not the same. They just need to have it. They don't use it every night, sometimes it's shaky, but but we're just doing it. That's why you call compulsive behavior. We're not really conscious about it because are we there to really enjoy the moment? If you're there to enjoy the moment, when people come on and they're jumping and they're waving and thing, that is when you're really having a time and you could go, man. You could hold that feeling with you for your whole life. Yeah, just like how you felt when you first heard this, when you first saw that.

Corie 56:06

Yeah, you could remember where it was, you know. Even Soccer Kingdom, you bring up that I

Learning The Culture And Writing Rooms

Corie 56:10

remember, yeah. Again, you know, Soka Kingdom was because, and that's something I've always seen throughout your career. You make it a point to work with a lot of the veterans or see if Lord Nelson with Stalin, or even Nicolypsum on our bringing up Crookro, and I think it was Rio.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

Crookro and Rio, yeah. On the stage. I mean, I grew up under all these people and I respect them. You know, I try to say it sometimes to people, I am the daddy in the soap of the business, but I don't really get the respect at all. And it's because we kind of, you know, like your mother says, if I say, Liz, she said, Well, me and you sit down on the same bench or in school, you know. It's like it's like because I on the same bench to them still, and I function and I beard black and I look nice and young and I pump in, they might think I'm one of them. But I'm really somebody who's an elder who has done for them what you know a parent has done, clear the path, put things there that they they they enjoy in. You know what I'm saying? But this is so I respect my elders like that. Every one of them. I grew up under scrunter, shadow, crazy, you name it. So for me to work with them is an honor. It's respect always. I'll never see myself above them. Yeah. No matter what. Even if I win 12 road match, I am not as great as Kitchener. You know, I am just a part of him. You know, and and when you really check it, we should be looking at the whole. I disappear. I working at the whole from Kitchener to Sparrow. I call the Godhead uh Ryan Lyon. Yeah. The Godhead. After the Godhead, you have Kitchen Sparrow, and you have Rose and Francine there. And then you start to come down, you know, and you'll have people like Stalin, and you'll have people like David, and you'll have people like Shadow, and you'll have people like, you know what I mean, Nelson. It have a tree. Yeah. And you had to know what part of the tree there's a batch that is Marshall, Destro, Bungie, Fan. You know, there's a batch. Yeah. And then there's a next batch you'll come down and see like second, pretty, this one down, then you have the Nilers. We are all a part of one thing.

Corie 58:07

I don't know. Maybe with you compete, you know them now. If you like part of the reason, you see and you have somebody because I see voice last week in Amorizan Rose. You make it clear that he's taking your road match, regardless of what you want to say.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

How? You can't just wake up and say, I am taking you roadmatch.

Corie 58:23

If you say you plan, he might have planned.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Road match is not something to take. Roadmatch is something you receive. Road match is the people, it resonates. Now, nothing wrong with having a song. Voice song is sweet and resonates.

Corie 58:36

That's one of the songs you refuse to?

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Yes. Okay. It's in my phone right now, I can play it for it. And because I don't want to go into why. Okay. But nothing wrong with that too, because voice needed something for the season. I already tried to help voice with the in my veins, with Choppy. I write and show them how to fix it. He comes with Bam Bam. I show him how to fix that. We work hard on it. But he needed something, and he got something, which is why you must know that the universe will always answer your call. And his young voice, you know, with a big show, and he needed something, so the universe answer. We can't be jealous of that. We can't be vexed that he has a song, you know. Other artists be vexed when they get hit. They will have a hit if they have a hit. You know, but you can't be like that. You have to share. But at the same time, that is a groove we track that is good for something. Does it have the does it have the element to get you on the stage and lift you up and keep you up? No. The first thing they will try to do is make a road mix and speed it up. Yeah. And from the time you make a road mix and speed that up, the groove is gone. Yeah, I suppose. And then it lost. This is a technical thing. I am not just an artist. I am a producer. I'm a musician. I am a scientist.

Corie 59:51

And the longevity is something too touch on because you went through this with Super, who was one of the greatest ever going any road. He was he was so hard to beat because of how like you remember there are some seasons where Super used to release almost the week before Carnival.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

Of course, I tried that this year too. We knew how much days we calculate what day Bunji released last year and what they released. He had 107 days. We had only 45. This year we come up with less 36. We take it to the limits 36 days we released the song. And yet people were trying to judge my song based on

Myths About Gatekeeping And Helping Youth

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

four days out. For experience, it was only on for four days. And I was going up with my hit in front of the audience who didn't know it. Everybody else's voice, Bungie, all them run up with the old songs.

Corie 1:00:42

Yeah, and I guess it was comparing it to get it forwards.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:44

Yeah, yeah.

Corie 1:00:45

Or I did last year's song.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Yeah. They open with those songs. Yeah. I as the man who's I am the man who set the standard of your open with your big song and you're close with your big song. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tesha doing it. Everybody's doing it now. It's a standard. But who set that standard? Teach them that.

Corie 1:01:01

Yeah, I remember fetting and seeing you do that for the first time. To the point where, as a as a as a fetal, I was confused the first time you do, I see you do it. I'm thinking, what going on here? Because in band days, you you come up. You used to hold that, the band go close with that song.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:15

You forget every song in the band back in the day with David, and I used to start to kung kitung and any song, who you think come song to song to song to song to song to song, and teach them how to go into songs and make the program. I was the first person doing that. I mean, just the point about us leaving PSA, which was uh brass fest, and going to alternative concept. We wanted to shift, we wanted to be a band that plays our own music for our where we didn't create that, we learned that from David Rudder. David Rudder was the only one doing that. Everybody else was taxi, and Song Rev was trying to play all the covers of everybody's songs, and PSA was just that. It was these bands on different stages playing all the same songs, and who played the best? Yeah, I like how taxi play um um like but then we changed it and we went to the the alternative concept means a different concept. Now today you can get up and see Kes doing his program, you can see Fianna and Bungie doing their program.

Corie 1:02:17

We introduced Yeah, most people know, and most bands, bands don't really play as much covers, you don't see as much bands playing covers as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:24

There are no bands anymore. The band stopped when Marshall came with Ecstatic 5.0. That was the last ban. I told them you can't have a traffic, you can't have Atlantic. You only people trying to do that right now is the A Team are still trying. A Team Schizophrenic. One minute they want to be a Reiki Penny Kaiser Stars, one minute they want to be a monk band with the back imperial, one minute they want to be a traffic where they have Zan and whoever any friendship. But that style went away when I told the band in the air, made ecstatic 5.0, I move it from a 13-piece band with bonds and background singers to five musicians. Trump, bass, keyboard, guitar, and the machine man.

Corie 1:03:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:07

Five. I got cussed for doing that. Yeah, but why? What make it make that change? Because I knew it was we needed to take uh we need to have more aerodynamics as a genre of music to fly international. It was too many people on tour, it was too much people on stage, it was looking like big bands, it was looking old, it was not where reggae was, it was not where hip-hop was, it was not where pop music was. So I was shaping the culture, and I got cussed out for that. I'll never forget performing Jenny Scar Park, Exotic 5.2, I had Dean Williams on the stilts, think it's on stilts, and and and they and all the bands was like he bring them John's boy, and I know we needed musicians who could sound like they could go to church, play, and I couldn't get that from Trinidad musicians. They could have just played chickening, chickening, chickening, chicken. They wasn't playing the chords and the things. So I went to Barbados, I did interviews, I looked for people all over the world. And people was mad at me for that. Every band after that became a five piece. Every band after that had two keyboard players, a guitarist, a bass player, Ableton, and drums. It is a standard, it was set, but at the beginning, nobody didn't like it. Nobody was, everybody was like, What you're doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brass man, yeah, true brass man off. No, brass men. I bring back brass in like a boss, but we do have enough brass men like Roy Keep and them. We do have the orphanage teaching people brass to have the standard of brass that we could have, like how the Cubans have it.

Corie 1:04:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

You know what I mean? So if we do have that, we have to accept what we have.

Corie 1:04:36

But you think UTT bringing back some of that? No, I know you're thinking UTT very well.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

I would say UTT trying, but UTT is underfunded. And I'm in discussions right now with them to fund, but I also think they're missing the vision because I feel I always advocate for having a music school that is look looks like QRC. Big fancy concrete, big nice iron, big clock, and it is like Berkeley. We must have the greatest people who teach in classical music and piano and violin, but we must also have the greatest panmen who teach in pan and the greatest Calypso and soccer artists and soccer producers, Less than Paul, Pelham, Kenny, um, all the um Frankie McIntosh, they should be in there.

Phones, Presence, And Audience Energy

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

The history of all these records should be being taught. I am I'm tired of going to government after government saying that this needs to happen. Until that happens, they wouldn't realize that we have a resource just as valuable as oil.

Corie 1:05:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

Which is talent and music, and you know.

Corie 1:05:34

Well, we say it like Colin Lucas was here, and he was saying that Trendland's a big, if you look at per capita, we have more musicians than any way in the world. Of course. And you see it, it's panorama.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:43

And I had I had many arguments with them at UTT. I went to UTT and I know what the shortcomings are. I know we're not doing our best. I know we're not taking it as serious as it is. We're trying, it is a good attempt, but in there, you have to forget Nicki Banaj and Glady. Gaga and Rihanna, all these people went to music schools, performing art schools. Half of these really great musicians you've seen out there who Dochi and this one and that one, they have serious training under them. We don't have training. I have Mila Karibe. I need to get her to have vocal trainer. I had a search, I don't know where to go. We should have a school for vocal training where everybody could go. I would have gone.

Corie 1:06:23

Right. Yeah. Well that means no, because that's another thing I will always admire about your career or your life, really. You seem to be comfortable putting yourself in spaces where you're brand new to it and you're starting at this 101. After accomplishing so much, why go back into UTT, for instance, to go to school?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:42

Because there's something to know. If you're to thy own self be true, I know I didn't know the history of my own culture. What I learned in UTT, I would not have learned anywhere else. And just the first iota of it that I try to use in creating in creation became a calypso monarch.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Just one little bit of it I use to talk about how soaker and calypso are related and why is one. And you know, I bring on the part of the verse about they used to call me a calypso song singer.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:13

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

Chuck Um Kitchener coined that. He's a Calypso song singer. You know that Calypso? A Calypso must write their own Calypso. Everybody feels they must write your own songs.

Corie 1:07:23

Yeah, yeah, that's the song.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:26

No, no, no. This thing have it have a space for everybody. If I didn't have the right, it was like full blown. And Casey went out to California. I went to California first to try to get big and fail. Had to come back home, but Casey and him went out and do it to Casey and Nikola. And they realized it wasn't really what we every time we go there, we look, it's not that. But we did come back with applications and knowledge of how to apply it to our own local thing. And we were able to apply it. Songwriters, get multiple writers, get people writing and rewriting. You know, long ago when you get a song from GB, you had to take what GB give you. If you tell him, change up at me and Vex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we need to tear up and rip up on five writers on our song. And so we go in here as a team. I thought you was gonna ask for things that we go. Yeah, tell me if I could talk about anything.

Corie 1:08:17

Well, things like what? You undergo on the back and our road. You tell me, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:23

We live it on the back and our road, but you go ahead.

Corie 1:08:25

What are we missing? Tell me what we miss it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:26

No, no, no. I mean, ultimately, um, you know, when I come here, I like to drop things that will change people's life. And and my life is like I open book as yeah, and there were many dark moments. Even now, I be wondering, like, why everybody doesn't want to roll with me and Juniely want to roll with you? Junior Lee, yeah, yeah, but Junior Lee and kicks. Even Juniel Lee is put sit on and tell him, you know, he needs a team. He didn't have a joke writing team, he could be as great as Kevin Hart. You know, two of them short. Right. But Kevin has a writing team, and he and he is a fella that inspired me because I even use some of his guys to write for me when I did the roast. You know, Kevin Sawyer. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Um, tutu plates. Where's Tutu Platz's name again? Kwame. Kwame, he's at the Tutu Platz by the jail there.

Corie 1:09:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

These fellas, brilliant boy. We have so much talent.

Corie 1:09:20

But even that I had to ask about because why you do that? Like it was that roast. When I watch that roast and I had easy your man telling you all kinds of things, you just want to be heroes, and I don't I find certain people should never say certain jokes or not. You comfortable in them spaces, go ahead and do them things for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:36

Yes, goodness isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

Because we spoke about this before you came. Your team, and this is what you just spoke about. How large is this team? Because you want to take it as visual groups, and then so many dimensions. Yeah, and it's obvious that it's not look.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:54

Yeah, right. So the most important thing, as I say, is team. Especially when I was a junior collection monarch by myself, I immediately didn't like that. I wanted friends. I bring Vincent to play the guitar, Vincent brings his brother

Duality, Rivalries, And What Wins Road

SPEAKER_00 1:10:10

to play the quattro. Next thing you know, the brother playing the guitar, he played the bass. Then I bring Farmer to pong some nail on a citrus to grow us just in. Next thing he playing percussion. We bring Pablo to play drums. I wanted a group around me. I always want to work in teams, and I felt it resonated with the saying, um, where two or more are gathered in thy name. I understand the power of multiple human beings functioning for one purpose. If we have a shared purpose. My team, listen, I have seven people working 23 hours a day in an apartment just doing graphics alone for on the screen. I have nine people in a room every night working on road mixes and remixes and how to fix these songs. You look at the videos, you'll see Mevon, you'll see Jeffers, you'll see me, you'll see Kyle, you'll see Bradley, who's MUV, man this month, you'll see Dominic Williams, Marcus Williams, Steve in the room, Edison in the room, nine of us in the room. I have a team functioning from 11 a.m. till about, you know, 10 of them in a room, people cooking for them. Then I have a staff fixing contracts and paperwork. And my team is about 75 to 80 people functioning. I have people on a farm in Talparu rehabilitating cocoa trees to make chocolate for the chocolate factory. I have a chocolate factory. My brother and his wife running with over X amount of employees. It's multiple people. If you're not going to be able to do it.

Corie 1:11:42

But it's true white people for excitement in competition, people saying you have enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:46

Enough? What? Enough money? I am spending more money than anybody else. So what am I really having? Where's the money being at?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:56

The money is going to other people's life. And that gives me life. When you take care of others, you are immediately taken care of. Immediately.

Corie 1:12:07

But you in this business is a common thing. You see, people with a team your size or anywhere near it in terms of the way people approach.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:13

In America, in London, with big teams when you have artists, you see, that's it. So the Marshall Montana book is going to be titled Between a Rock and a Star. I am in the hardest place. You are between a rock and a hard place. I am between a rock and a star. I am children, that is the rock. And and I am like a superstar, but yet I'm not. Meaning that I'm big in this little rock. But if I step on this rock and I go into the rest of the world, I am nothing. Nobody ain't really know me. So it's like, how do you you in between? You know, you have too big for here, but as soon as you come out of here, it's too small. So you have to keep striving. And it is that thing where you sometimes get lost in transition. Because I used to have to go and live in LA to get peace. And I'm in LA trying to get everybody to react to me and nobody really taking along. So it's like you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. So you're living in this space where you have to create your own hype. I got you. I got you.

Corie 1:13:18

And as David brings up to you, it's something I hear a lot of people talk about that you always say. You will tell people what gets you here, wouldn't get you there. It's one of the most famous things you tell people. What about the people who get you there?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:29

Like the people who get me there, I I look back every day and smile. That is probably the greatest asset that I have. I look back at what happened to Cunel's life. I look back at what happened to Patrice Roberts. I look back at what I can look at Farmanapi. You know, I can look at Zan. I look at the people, you know, who, and when I say they got me there, these are people that I choose to help. But they also help me too. We work together, people like Dana Schiger, who runs auditing, people like Che, where Che is working today. Every time they come here with me, there's some level of influence where these people are much better off than where they were and much more developed and really settled. You know, they have assets, they have catalogue, they have a live show that is worth something. You know what I mean? Not everybody can have it. I can't give you what you don't want to get to yourself. So there are those who embraced it and did well. And you say, I've a saying, you're only as successful as the people you have made successful.

Corie 1:14:38

Okay. So then where the ideas come from with this rhetoric that Marshall do help people because they don't see, they're not studied.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:44

People who's saying this don't study. People who say this when okay, so Marshall didn't give Kess every single alternative concept to open from the from the second or third one. He has opened I gave it to Blue Ventures one year, I give it to Benji one year, I give it to Kwin Dubois one year, I give it to Patrice one year, all the people who sell it out under the trees in Normandy. I was the first one, I was actually in Mascam. Get too big for Mass Cam, give that to somebody else, move to Normandy. And move to um upper level. Move from there to Normandy, then move from Normandy, and every time I give them a I gave them a show that was established, that they were able to go now and become their own concerts. Tessure and all having it there, that's yeah. That was not there before. You know what I'm saying? So they benefited, but they don't know what they benefited from because they don't know the history.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:38

A lot of people talking about things like okay, every time you go in a party and you have a dressing room with a couch in it, with some food or some water, Masha Montana make that happen. Every time you go in a fet and you see big screens on the side of a stage, Masha Montana make that happen, I fight for those things

Near-Disaster, Logistics, And Showcraft

SPEAKER_00 1:16:00

to become standard. But people say fight fit for yourself. So I did not fight fit for myself. I fought fit for everybody. When we used to have Rama, when we used to have Rama and we had the big screens and we had somebody there programming his screens, and I had programming screens. He said, no, but it's there for you. Do you have somebody make any graphics? You get somebody to make a graphics. No, everybody doing that. It was never for me. Why do they think it is for me? You know what I'm saying? You want me to, I did it for me, but it was available to everybody always. Yeah.

Corie 1:16:35

The other the other rhetoric is that so, like, even the album now, you're looking at Paris Cool T. I was looking at him performing with you. And it's like a time warp. Like when I see him and the energy he has, like, I go back to come dig it on them kind of days, so something else.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:50

And and and yeah, and there is an individual out there who has um proclaimed that you know his job is to bring me down. And I'm actually doing nothing for the youths and this and that. And oh, yeah, and see now you're working with this one, you're working with this one. Listen, every collaboration on my album, except for one, is songs that people bring to me and ask me to do. And I'm saying yes. And of those yeses that I say while I have my stuff to do, I am saying yes because one, I like the idea. Two, I like the personal vibration. If I didn't like the vibration, I didn't like the idea, I wouldn't be there. But at the same time, it's taking me away from my work too. And I have my work too. And while I promote my road match, I promoting your road march too. I spend the money on these videos, I put up the money on these songs. Not them, they don't have it, but I dare making it happen with them if we have a deal and we work out. But at the end of the day, that person saying, Masha, I am saying 20 no's to one yes. Every time you see me do a record at Paris, they'd had 19 other people bring a record to me to do that I couldn't do. So I'm I'm only accepting what is coming to me. I could say no to all. So it's not that I just that Mila Carey Bay's song at Private Ryan was given to me three years ago. I held it back. I played for Ira Star, almost had Ira Star on it. When she was here, she loved it. We listened. And eventually I said, Mila, let's dust this out because I love this song. You know what I'm saying? And and and all these songs is just songs people bring to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:19

So it's not that Marshall is not working with youths. I have, if you really watch, I have been what about NAVA? Carnival feeling, Festive Alfeeling. When he was performing alongside Sean Paul and Shaggy and Marsha Monday, he was nobody. And that was a song was brought to me by Kingston, and I did that. So I've been doing songs with legends who bring songs, this one will bring songs. I just keep doing whatever comes to me that I feel is great.

Corie 1:18:45

Yeah, I guess the comparison of all these Jamaican artists who come to Trinidad with 10 artists when they give them stage time and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:52

Yeah, but somebody said that I did that for years. For years, I carry Patrice, Farmer, Benji, Zan, Omi on tour around the world when no promoter wasn't hiring them. They were getting paid off of what I get paid. How could they say Jamaicans? That is a big talk that's out there, but it's not factual. It is not real. I have been carrying people on tour. I carry Farma Napi, Racial Fortune, all across the Caribbean. When we were touring St. Croix, St. Thomas, Creedida, St. Vincent, since 1986 and 87. Where is this information coming from? Where is this misinformation coming from that I haven't I haven't been doing this? It's not true.

Corie 1:19:41

Well, sometimes, sometimes it's platforms like these, or as you say, writing books or doing a documentary where people will find out because in a funny way, sometimes the world starts when you're born for some people. I don't know if they look back much and see where it is happening or what was there. I was lucky enough to be there for someone.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:57

There is a lack of reflexivity in Trinidad and Tobago. We don't look back at 1970. We don't look back at what caused the revolution. We don't look back at what the Muslims had done when they came in with the riots in in um Rio Claro or Princess Tong, sorry. We don't look at what the indentured laborers are, we don't look at why people came here. We we don't know nothing about who we are, why we are how we are. So that is to me, I don't like to blame people. I have no reason to blame government or teachers or education system. I just say responsibility. Responsibility is your ability to respond. How do we respond? What is our response to it now? So I try to get people to know it

India, Africa, And Inner Practice

SPEAKER_00 1:20:40

in music. As I sing Soul of Calypso, as I sing Real Unity, that's why I sing dancing in the streets. I want them to know. But um, but you know, um the looking back thing is very critical for you to understand you when you know where you're going, if you know where you're coming from, and they can recognize patterns.

Corie 1:20:59

Yeah, yeah. And people, people, I don't know if they ignore it because we're in an era now where it's easier to look back than when I come up. We used to go and go in a library and look for books and look for little publication. Now you could find most of these things on YouTube. YouTube, remastered, clean and everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:14

And and and there's a funny thing about it where it doesn't really matter what people who don't know and what they say. Because at the end of the day, you're only as good as your last performance. You're not going to stop me from getting up in 2027 and do something great.

Corie 1:21:29

So when you win the 12, because you're say you're saying you're winning it, right? Yeah. And you're going to the number one, you plan to stop.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:35

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Really? After 12, I will not enter the road march competition anymore. Yeah. I'm already there. I already didn't want to enter. But 12 is looking nice. I didn't want to, I didn't want to beat Kitchener. But it's more like you understand what you have to do. There is something higher than you that speaks. And if you could listen, it will tell you that you have to do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:01

I am not about road marches. This is not the time for road march. I told them last year, this is not the time to try to bring back so common. That is not what is needed. What is needed right now, we need to invest in the recording process, the writing process, the performing process of our talented ones. We need schools for them to go into learn music, learn sound engineering, learn the aspects of music production, video production, everything. We need to hit right where reggaeton left off and left Afrobeat, where Afrobeats leaving off now and they just open. That is our slot. We're not going to get there focusing on trying to beat one another in our live show where everybody shouting and screaming, these songs is no hits. We don't have music. We need to, I my team knows that since 2015 we were like cooperation over competition. Like our supposed last year we competed. This documentary that's coming out this week, if you watch it, you'll understand that that happened. And we have been focusing on collaborating musically and finding a way. We have been finding local collaborators like Mevon and Kyle and Jeffers who could write things. But that local team is only a ground base first because we've also been working with all Bunaboy writers. I have uh about 90 songs that I produced in Nigeria last year, and I'm about to finish them. And all the writers are whisked writers, Bunaboy writers, producers, the songs sitting on there waiting on me. I'm busy trying to win road match again. We vexed with ourselves for that, but we know that we have to do that. But we're not on it after this. Win or lose? Win or lose. And when I say win or lose, trust me, when you write great songs, one of them will end up being road match.

Corie 1:23:48

Yeah, because they just say you should push, you're pushing the wrong one.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:50

I am not pushing any wrong. How am I not pushing the wrong one? I have to push the one that I think when I had release and family.

Corie 1:24:00

Yeah, they say you was pushing any wrong one.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:02

Fiance, no, fiance. Be only in if you're pushing the right one. Yes, and I decided to I rest on release. I spent 50,000 on a music video. So wait. What kind of oscillate and all kind of thing? Or they do the video and think, don't my way, I'm JJ and Friends is asked them. And I threw it out and focused on family because I wanted the win for me, skinny and thing, but I knew it was his song.

Corie 1:24:25

Oh, they're not in in terms of the collaboration. He wouldn't do it if you're not if you're not.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:28

Well, not wouldn't do it, but they wanted to see a commitment. I see. And they wanted to see that you're there to be able to show up every night and because you can't be right now. I competed with myself. Bungie competed with himself last year with um Towson Ragan and everybody just registered their songs. I register all my songs. Don't a compromise register for much another because my sweet bat. You don't know what people will, you don't know, and and registering and just supporting Tuco and supporting his system. And somebody might want to come across the stage with that. I win with I come second and would match multiple years. Scandalous, um, um, survivors, oh multiple years. I come second, first and second sometimes.

Corie 1:25:12

Yeah, that the idea that you're pushing the wrong song, and even talking to you about how long your process is, that it's hard to change mainstream anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:19

I suppose everybody really feels that this is we trying to win things. What about the fact that we're trying to give people something to liberate them and on stage? We're trying to serve the masses. We coming, I come in behind roadmaster. I not come and say I'm not doing it, but I'm coming to write this song that's going to make it live off of the ground, come out of your body, and Ash Benzi come back to yourself.

Corie 1:25:42

That's the answer. I'd made a video, I don't know if you see it. I was basically saying that the band leader would make a decision as to what's going on and play by the stage. Because the band leader had to know when the truck reached any stage. And I see that from when Pan was deciding the road match. So as you say, when bands was on the road, because you you play with your band, but you do the stage thing sometimes too, where you're lying by the trucks, you climb up on the truck and you play. So I it's my opinion that the band leader had to make a decision at some point in time because the masquerade experience is mine.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:14

Well, I will say this if you're observant, if you're wise, and you look well, the facts are there. You have some bands used to say what song they want to cross the stage. It has some masqueraders used to push back and complain. It had some

Environment, Oneness, And Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 1:26:30

DJs with have our thing that they think, or this is calling mafia. But you know, sometimes they feel it's me, they feel it's Chinese laundry, they feel it's a conglomerate that we meet in there, but sometimes they're doing it themselves. We are all part of an organism, but let's go back. Advantage. Is that not a big song that's been ruled marshal? Okay, Pump Your Flag is our exception. We work real hard on that one. I can't remember what we are good at against.

Corie 1:26:57

Okay, I guess. I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:58

But let's go now 2013, Super Blue, Fantastic Friday. Wasn't that overarching? Where was he mafia then? Okay, 2014. What the mafia to make it look good enough? Waiting on the stage. I'm not with that Ministry of Work. Right. That was what I had to work hard for. 2015 with Like a Boss, where was he mafia then? If we really analyze the road matches, weren't they the songs that were deserving of winning? Weren't they? Can you remember crossing the stage? People was a little shaky about crossing the full extreme when it was so slow. But it because it was slow, but it and they didn't want to chip across the stage. People naturally don't want to chip across the stage. They want to fly. It is rare for you to decide that the song has to be really, really good and have elements. Like, like, like, like you when you listen, stranger, find yourself a rag, put it in your pocket, yeah, you have to do it. Get in pose a band, get in position, and when they say rag, actually telling a stranger what. To do it. This is like when you hear that lyrics with what he's seeing it and how we say there is a magic happening there. Jumbi, when you hear we ready, there is a magic happening there. When you hear Banner, yeah, there's a magic happening. You can't deny. So I don't know why it's all this technicality about DJ. Yes, DJs try to determine what to play. Yes, band leaders try to determine what play. Certain bands that say we're going with this. And sometimes it's when they like the artists or they do like the artist. Dive one. And I know people do like me. Right? In in the business. But the fans like me, like people that people across this country like me and never underestimate their power. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's what happened with Savannah Grass. They were so focused on this small circle. They forget to be go and point fourteen. Yeah, it's about country where people want to go on, but people not on that thing about who is who and Marshall and Kess and people not on that. People on the energy of the product. That's what I say. We getting caught up in the stardom thing and the choosing sides. When you say, I like this badou like this, I like this badou like this, I like this baddo like this. Your personality becomes shaped by your likes and your dislikes. All of this is creation. Everything is beautiful. What black, what white, what short, what fat, what thick. It is all creation. It's all one thing. You have to appreciate the beauty, but what do we need in this moment to get us here? What gets us here when get us here? So the groovers might get us to the ramp. The groovers will get us to the ramp, and we're singing. But when we reach on that ramp to get across to that next side, we need gas. Get them, get them, get them. Everybody wants to be pushing back and singing and jumping up. And then that's three years done. We want to be up. We want to be up.

Corie 1:29:52

Yeah, we finish with the woman and room for that moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:54

I mean, it's cute. It's nice, it's a melody, it has a feeling. But after the chorus, where okay, sing a line in that stuff. Sing a next line for me. You know the chorus line.

Corie 1:30:09

I can't remember woman and rum. I can't be in myself. Okay, can't be in myself. Sing a next line for me. Somebody. I can't behave myself again. Somebody pull it up. It's in the fingers.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:22

Beautiful songs are beautiful songs, have beautiful moments. But you know. Yeah.

Corie 1:30:28

And if people choose to chip across the stage, I see you chipping across the stage with your wife singing full extreme. It's one of the greatest things I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:36

Shame and sad too. Shame and sad. But what I would do. I'm only shame and sad because I ain't winning. And that is a selfish feeling. Right? Because everybody like no, and I'll tell you something. I love that full extreme song. I love the drums. I love the horns. I love Maxima's voice. I love the lyrics. I

The Next Chapter And Collective Creation

SPEAKER_00 1:31:00

just love it. The only reason I win love it is because it's not mine and I ain't winning. And that's not that's not a nice way to go. People who do like Angle because they say it's a dog shit song. Somebody says that how could I look at Jefferson Mevon and them work and say that when I know there is greatness in there? It might be my favorite, but I can't say it's not good work. Yeah. And then if I vex with them because of that, how am I gonna jump to it in Carnival? They when everybody's jumping. Everybody go be jumping and I go be vexed because it didn't mind someone, and I will not have a good carnival. Oh, wait till don't get caught there. Yeah, no, you're gonna have a good car. Don't get caught there. You hear what I'm telling you? Yeah, because the train is coming. Get them.

Corie 1:31:43

But you say this black, this white, we should like both of them. I've just seen Mary's feta see the the interview that because Banji would come out and say, hey, Carnival is not two artists. And the road match thing or the competition thing tends to bring it down to a duality. Me versus them, and it has other artists and things.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:59

Who's them? I find you shouldn't call me them. Yeah. Or call me or call me. No, the voice wasn't out then. I guess. Come on, let me be real. Who are you talking about? He's another fella. I will all I say is he is saying that it's not about that. But don't you know it was about Kitchen and Sparrow, right true? Don't you know it was about Rose and Francine right true? Don't you know it was about David and Tambu right true? Don't you know it's about day and night, right true? Don't you know it's about left and right, right true? Don't you know it's about up and down, right through, tongue and south? This is the world of duality. People going to put two things against one another because it's competition. In the physical world, you could only see the front of my hand. You cannot see the back. But in the real world, you seen you say so duality does exist. People like a cock fight, people like a race. That's why they like the Olympics, that is why they like the World Cup. They want somebody to win.

Corie 1:33:03

But you like the race too. What's your thoughts on him coming out? You prefer if he's in and all, they could battle it head to head.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:08

I mean, I want everybody to do what they want. I just not so sure what the reason was for that decision. I thought the reason was one thing, and then I hear the reason as something else. And I don't think that it is about giving other people a chance because other people is having a chance. There are other people in the race too. Brave boy in the race, everybody ain't gonna get a chance. Session Patrice in the race. Everybody in the race, but the two main players will be talked about. And they will put up against somebody. I going up against anybody any day, neck and neck. I almost dead backstage in the in the village room. I tell you, I never tell you that. I tell another story. I can't tell you the cool story, but I sprayed something on my voice to get back my voice. And that year 2012, I had to sing in the um semi-finals. I was already so comfortable with advantage, but I had to go and sing in the groovy monarch to get in with Mr. Fett. And I had no voice, I'd come from Prestige. And then I sprayed the thing in my truth to get my truth to come back. I run everybody, on my security, everybody, to just go and pray in the back. And it started to swell my truth till I can't breathe. And I started to suffocate in the village room. You know what's happening when I suffocate in? I suffocate, and the whole village room is going, Aiwa, ayewa, ayewa, ayewa, ayewah. I say, I am going to die for people chanting aiwa. Oh my god. No, this is not what it's happening. This is not what's happening. And I and he had come to me, oh yeah. And he coming behind Marshall for, but I trying to win the groovy and the power. Yeah, with everything. Boy, I don't know who saved me. Medic, my same vocal um specialist who passed away this year. He come and catch me, and we set up salt water and do all kinds of things to get the air passage to open up. And I went up and sing Mr. Fett and qualify and win the groovy and went on to win the power that year, too. Because I real planned for Iowa. I rent a stadium, I get the flag cruise, I make them pop up on a piece of board and come up in front of the judges and who come through the crowd, people pelting bear stag at me. But when I put on the suit and fly out the stadium with the rock.

Corie 1:35:24

That was the end of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:25

It was the end.

Corie 1:35:26

I was the back in Aiwa, you know. I said Iowa had them. I say Iowa had them, but I mean it's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:30

Just try me, just before my judgment and pass Saturday on the stage. They have to throw san and thing on the stage. You forget that? People we should really be telling the stories of what happened in real life, boy. You will be shocked to know what's be happening that stage. Like super blue and money markintosh when Ronnie chose super blue battle in the dressing room and super blue right running song.

Corie 1:35:53

Yeah, boy.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:56

I see when he talked about it the other day.

Corie 1:35:58

Yeah, it's nice to hear them talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:00

Yeah.

Corie 1:36:00

No, they go kill all these songs we didn't talk about, right? But again, it's so interesting that it can be conversation going on in the game.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:06

I might have to come back on the next one.

Corie 1:36:08

This is as good as let me book it one time. But before we do that, I'd ask you about your journeys to India and so on. That's something I saw. I saw you take many, many times where you as a matter of fact, at one point at your peak, you had a little bobo face, and you kind of fade away from it. And India felt like that a little bit too with your first set of journeys. What's that like for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:30

I I understand um um the going in and the going out tired. I understand the ebb and the flow. I understand the yin and the yang. I I I see it as myself up in the mountain planting, planting stuff, and all these stuff starts to get ripe and they grow up nice. Okay, I pick them, I put them in the back of the van, I come long in the market, I sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, the van empty, I look around and I drive back up and I'll go in and sow seeds again. So you must go in and come out. It's a cycle which gives everybody a chance to rise. Because while you're in, somebody could be out. And while they're coming in, you coming out. It's like a pit stop. You know, son, um, in F1 races. When you go in, men have an advantage. So I understand that ebb and flow in my life. And every time I look in to find a higher height, as I told you about, life is is is exponential. It can only keep getting better if you believe that. But you have to understand sometimes you have to go in because what got you there wouldn't get you there. What we need right now is not what we needed back then. It's not the same thing you're looking for, it's not the same conditions you're going up against. But you have to go in and then ask yourself well, where am I and what am I trying to achieve? And sometimes it realize it's not really about you. The universe is trying to achieve something through you. Yeah, yeah. The universe wants to expand. The universe knows when we're stuck, the universe knows when we need an iPhone, it knows when we need the iPad, it knows when we need AI. You know, it knows when we need to go beyond where we are. Because what got us here wouldn't get us there. Where are we going? We going infinite, but we're going higher and higher and higher. So I knew going to India was me finding a way. What was attractive about India? Because I was a Catholic, I was born Catholic, and as I tell you, I was reading the Bible, I couldn't get the answers. And and then I just started to study all the religions, and I realized all the religions were basically trying to say the same thing and doing the same thing, and I was grateful for being a Catholic because it it centered me and I understood what God was. But then there was more I wanted. I didn't just want to know about God, I wanted to experience it. And there's a way that you could go within yourself, that you could find the source of creation. It is sitting right here within you. If you could go inward and find it, you become disappear, and you become nothing that everybody has. If this was a if this was an aquarium, right? And this aquarium was full with water, that's why I see life. Is this aquarium with water? The water is inside the aquarium, but it's inside this bottle, it's inside this bottle, it's inside of it. This could be me, this could be David, that could be you, that could be somebody else. If you were to, if your container was to break, where would the water in you go? Can you just flow back into the aquarium? If this is your body and you die, where does your soul go? Back into the aquarium, back into the aquarium as it came from. It is a decision to become flesh. People think that you're born by your parents, and I think kids choose parents. I had to choose my parents. I needed that man and that woman to go and do something, and me flying them to because the qualities that they possess is what makes me. So therefore, I'm saying, not because I look this way, I might be tall and slim, you might be tall and white, you might be short and black, you might be white and fat. I I do understand the same thing is in you that is in everything. That is how I think of life. And and when you lose this body go out, and you can choose to come back in the next one, and and it's just that important to understand that we are all equal, but we are all one. I have three big issues in the world right now. What's the biggest? What's the biggest issue you feel in the world right now? I interviewing you now. Tell me what I'm saying. What is the biggest concern in the world right now? For me, is inequality. Okay. Well, that's for you, but I'm not asking for you. Asking from your observation. Economics is the number one issue. People want money. People need to live, people need to survive. Money, economics is the biggest issue. Second biggest issue, the environment. And the third biggest issue is that thing of equality, which is ethnicity. You understand? Because we have the Democrats, the Republicans, the white, the purists who want to be this, the Indians, the Indian. Right. If we were to put that first, if we were to put that first, wouldn't we start with the absolute truth? What is the absolute truth? What is the absolute truth about this room, about life? All are we is one. That is the absolute truth. All of us one. It means we equal. Not equal inequality. Equal. If you start with that truth, if all of we is one, then the second thing that should come in line should be the environment. It means that we are one with our environment. The world is not something out there that providing us with oil and providing us with water. And it is part of us. We are an extension. So all of us one. We are one with the environment. When we understand that, we'll know the biggest issue right now is to protect the environment. Clean up the seas, stop the plastic, clean the air, make the make it where we could feed ourselves, the food nice, fix the soil, make the soil so we can get to eat. The farmers don't want to spend so much money on fertilizer and water. And once we fix that, wouldn't we all have jobs? Wouldn't we all the economics will be flowing? Just change the order of what we're thinking. This is what I think about on a daily basis. And this is what I be trying to address in my music. Small community, I might be talking about those things, but I trying to build it in the community that I in. Build people who are sustainable, build the Del Tunes, have them planting, have my farm, have us eating chocolate that is healthy, cocoa Trinitario cocoa with three basic ingredients cocoa butter, wellness, meditation, yoga. Going to India helps me find the way in. Once I find the way in it, because it teaches me silence, it teaches me about how to treat my body when it comes to food and rest and waking up and everything. And the sun and the moon, I learn about the science of being. There is a science about being. It makes you get very spiritual. What does spiritual mean? Spiritual doesn't mean you're reading the Bible, or you're as a church person or you're not. Spiritual is anything once you go beyond physical. If I sit here and I become very still, my body function goes down. Lungs, heart, liver, spleen, everything satisfied. I become very still. If you saw a man still on the ground, what would you say? So he died. Dead. So you become at rest. Ultimate rest. Once that happens, the mind is be going like this. There are techniques to concentrate and breed that is make the mind slow down. It ain't thinking about yesterday, it ain't thinking about tomorrow. Most of the time you think about what happened or what going and happen. You're never thinking about what's happening right now. Because if I say no, where that moment is gone. No, no, it's always fleeting. So you have to be present. Once I've learned that in India, that's what I learned through the techniques. I could now sit and become so still and so clear. I could hear what is needed. I could see what is, I could feel it. And that is what it has done for me. I didn't only get that in India, I also go to Africa. There is a level of it in I'm in Uganda, in Sadhguru meditation school, with all the children out there helping them build studios. I went to South Africa, I went, you know, Kenya, I went Ghana. But the African version of it is a little more abstract than the Indian version of it. The Indian version they teach you the technique of how to get there. But it's all one technique. This is, and it's not only African and Indian this happening. People know it in Europe, people know certain things. But the main thing is not a big secret, it's about becoming still and going inward. And accessing something that if you could run faster than me, or if you could jump higher than me, no problem. But the ability to access the inward, we all possess that equally. Yeah. I with you. And if we access it, we could be anything we want to be.

Corie 1:45:29

Makes sense. Now, when I saw you the first time when you meet, you tell me you just came back from India. That is a time where I see you like as always macro the Instagram, see how happy he is in Toku. You look at peace. Yeah. You and your wife was coming out. I wasn't sure it was you because I was looking at you and you look, you threw off some weight.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:45

I threw off all the weight. This the story of this year and my weight and why I was in India will be told soon. Okay, good. I'm not ready to tell it. I didn't want to distract everybody, but there is something occurring. Okay, good. You understand what I'm saying? And it it started back in party. It started the week before party. I could I will take you back to where that'll be the second documentary. All right, good. And it'll be made in it'll be made within the next year. Yeah. And I will talk about it here. All right. But there was a challenge for me. I threw off all the weight, I come back. You know, everybody knows I had knee surgery in 2016. I've been operated on bone on bone. It's hard for me to do what I'm doing and still make the songs and make the music at the same time. And go at our pace. So I'm sacrificing a lot. And although I'm looking happy, trust me, behind the scenes is pain.

Corie 1:46:39

Yeah. I saw you say that. I saw you saying a card looking tired, you have to find a way because they say when Marshall have a road match, the same type of primary school bazaar you performing, and you go and you go and play it all this.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:49

Yeah, you're good in our primary school after this right now. And in the Banwan reuse. Because that is part of the game. You want to win. And you also have to convince people how great your song is. And every day somebody wake up and realize, wait, no, this is not shit. This has something in it.

Corie 1:47:06

But we've seen it now, we seen it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:07

So people apologize and people say sorry because our natural inclination is the bone dung from the time you hear it.

Corie 1:47:12

Yeah. I hear people dislike song and people like song, but never see other than you, people dislike the person who likes the song. He's the only artist. If I say I like Uncle, people say it's a Marshall thing, and it's a martial thing. It's strange.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:26

Just saying, nobody must be a Marshall fan.

Corie 1:47:28

I don't understand. We must be fans. I like to be a fan of my favorite artists. Again, I was there. I see, I see I love my country. I see too young to soccer. But when you say follow in the footsteps of my teacher, that meaningful. And I don't know if it means in my childish brain at the time. Yeah. But it felt like something when we were in primary school and you're singing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:47

Listen, everybody will experience the sun. Everybody will get a time in life when they will be faced with what I live in with. Intensity comes in waves and it will happen to you at some point. And if you if you actually want it to happen, you could get there. But sometimes even if you don't want to happen, it is happening to you. You're born in a manger. You just want to bloop any ninja who shocks. At the act. You had to go from there. At the act, you know what I'm saying? So I'm saying that once you understand the intensity of life, um, nothing is given that you can handle. That's what I've seen us go. What do you think you can handle? I have had to find myself able to handle the responsibility that I have been given. And I think I have been showing up.

Corie 1:48:32

Guys, well, listen, it's a good place to end. Because I want to thank you for showing up. I understand that to choose something that you want to do at four or five years old and do it consistently for 40 years and choose to be at the highest level of it. It has to be difficult. It had to be lonely. It had to be painful, as you say. Because, and that's why I asked the first question where why you remain so open? Because I feel I want to hide. I had enough to hide and I could stay away. You've never shied away.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:59

When you're a real leader, you have to show up for the people. And sometimes you have to take things with a hard, hard knock with a smile. Right now, when you come to my album launch, the Ancore album, you will see DJs, you will see producers, you'll see writers, you'll see young artists, you'll see veteran artists, you'll see multiple people functioning from this great piece of work and making this great piece of work function. That is the most important thing.

Corie 1:49:28

Yeah, and it's something I feel listening to the album because the feel of the album, every song feels like it's touching and pulling from different genres.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:35

Who has such four power songs beating out there right now? Who has our album? Point.

Corie 1:49:43

But thank you very much, sir. This was a pleasure. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:45

It was a pleasure. I know we didn't dive down into everything, but I'm grateful for you know what you're doing is important and for doing it with such a high standard. You, David, the whole team. This is this is reflexivity. This is being able to look back, talk about things, and at least. Least have some sort of ground to study something from. And I hope that I have contributed to 100%.

Corie 1:50:05

And that's why I tell you where the Alvin Daniel thing was so important to me because without him doing what he'd do, we wouldn't be here. So I appreciate it.